This is the third and final part of my Pokémon living dex guide. Read part one here and read part two here. You can also track my own living dex progress here

Breeding

Things you will need:

A few ditto

A Pokémon with the ability flame body

Held items for breeding specific Pokémon like incense for baby Pokémon

Optional: oval charm

Breeding is relatively easy as it is a more passive activity, and can be done alongside everything else you have to do to complete your living dex.

The first thing you’ll need is a few Dittos. I would trade a ditto on the GTS for another ditto. Having a Ditto with a different original trainer will produce eggs faster. Breed any and all Pokémon you need. Having an Oval Charm helps produce eggs faster, but it isn’t needed. While you’re playing every half an hour or so stop by the day care center(s) and see if you have an egg waiting for you. Place the egg in your PC and go back to your business. Once you’ve received a fair amount of eggs hop on your bike with a party full of eggs and your Pokémon with the Flame Body ability and ride in the continuous circle around the Battle Resort in ORAS or the Prism Tower in Lumoise City in XY until all of the eggs have hatched. Hatching eggs in Sun/Moon is even easier because you can just drop them off at Isle Avue on Poké Pelago and they will hatch with out needing to be in your party. Once you’ve hatched your eggs organize them out in to groups of Pokémon you need to evolve and Pokémon that you can place in to your living dex. Remember that Pokémon at the daycare center do earn EXP while they are there.

Leveling up and Evolving

Suggested items

lucky egg

EXP share ON

soothbell

rare candy (use poke miles or BP to buy)

Some evolutions are location specific or are dependent on high friendship.

Like with breeding, leveling up can be done along side other elements of working on your living dex. Leveling up consists of grinding EXP by battling so your Pokémon will eventually evolve. Of course you can just grind by encountering Pokémon, but there are other places with in the games you can go to earn a lot more EXP at once post-game.

In all gens you can re-battle the elite four and find trainers you missed during your play through. In XY you can use EXP O Power, go to the Battle Chateau on Route 7, battle trainers in the back alleys in Lumiose City, or go to restaurants like the Sushi High Roller. In ORAS you can re battle trainers (find them using the PokéNav), battling trainers in their secret bases, or battling in the Mauville Food Court.

Conclusion

Completing a livingdex is quite an accomplishment. It’s hard and takes a lot of time to do. Just follow these steps and take your time. Don’t give up!! I know you can do it!

This is part two of my living dex pokémon guide. you can find part one here

Catching

Catching Pokémon you don’t have to complete your living dex is a big chunk of completing your living dex. The first step is to go back to each route and catch any Pokémon you might have missed. Websites and wikis give in depth details about the catch rates and exact locations for Pokémon.

Starting from the first routes and working up to stronger Pokémon is the way I like to approach it. False Swipe is a move I prefer to use to catch wild Pokémon that are at a much lower level than my party Pokémon. I chose to do so because it will do enough damage to the wild Pokémon with out causing it to feint. Take advantage of EXP earned while catching Pokémon to level up Pokémon you need to evolve. It can also be faster to catch all evolved forms of the Pokémon you need rather than breeding and leveling up. Use a dex tracker while running around catching what you still need because it’s a good visual to see what you have caught and any that are left. Any Pokémon that you have a hard time catching or you can’t catch may be easier to obtain other ways (like trading for example). Don’t forget to visit the friend safari in XY and mirage spots ORAS because they contain Pokémon you can’t catch anywhere else in the game.

My method for mythical, legendary, and low catch rate Pokémon is to use a combo of false swipe and a move that causes an effect that doesn’t cause HP damage (e.g. moves that cause status conditions like Paralysis). I also carry about 30 timer balls, ultra balls, and dusk balls. I also carry a collection of quick balls, net balls, and dive balls. Even a Pokémon that has very low HP and has a status effect can take a long time to catch.

Trading

Wonder Trade any extra or duplicate Pokémon. Do this often at the beginning of your living dex adventure because you can obtain a lot of Pokémon this way. In addition wonder training earns you Pokémiles, which you can exchange for rare candy in Lumiose City and Mauville City. Rare candy will be handy when you are leveling up to Pokémon to make them evolve. When I wonder trade my Pokémon I like to have them hold item to hold like a berry. While there’s no beneficial nature to do so, I think it’s a nice gesture.

Having a group of friends to trade with is great as well. WT is much more successful early on because the Pokémon you get in return is random. You have the potential to get an uncommon Pokémon or even a shiny Pokémon. I have WT’ed away many harder to find Pokémon. But you are more likely to get a lower level common Pokémon in return. Trading with your friends also comes in handy when you have Pokémon that only evolve when traded. There are a few of them and it’s easy to ask your friend to trade back with you rather than finding someone online who will help you.

Any Pokémon that is version-exclusive can be obtained through the GTS. Trading a Pokémon exclusive to your version and asking for a version exclusive in return is seen as a fair trade. The trick to the GTS is requesting trades that are seen as fair. You are going to want to trade for something that is equivalent to your Pokémon in value. This goes for Mythical and Legendary Pokémon as well. You can obtain some of these Pokémon through the GTS but there are exceptions. Legendary Pokémon can be traded for harder to catch Pokémon, shiny Pokémon, or other Legendary or Mythical Pokémon. I have been pretty successful getting remaining Pokémon though the GTS. My rule of thumb is to wait 24-48 hours before giving up on a trade in the GTS. By this point others have not felt your trade was fair enough and it’s worth trying with another Pokémon.

I wrote a living dex zine this summer. It’s a guide based on what I did to complete my own living dex. If you are interested you can buy it here but I’m posting it here in parts as well. You can track my own living dex progress here.

History

A living Pokédex or “living dex”, as it is known, is having one of every single Pokémon in your in-game PC. The Living dex is a fan-created concept with the intent of adding a new layer of challenge or goal to the playing experience. The Living dex is a lot like the Nuzlocke challenge, there is a simple core concept but other players change or modify the concept to make it more fun for them. There are 802 Pokémon in the National Pokédex, not all of them can be obtained by playing the games.

Getting started

You can start your living dex at any point of your Pokémon journey. That being said, I have found that it’s easier to start earlier in the game, as you will spend less time back tracking to catch all those Pokémon found on the first few routes. Don’t worry if you can’t get every species of Pokémon you encounter at the start of the game; some Pokémon are harder to catch. Once you progress further in the game or finish the main story these will be easier to catch than others. Catching as many different Pokémon as you can while you play the main story of the game is the first step in completing your living dex.

This guide was created with the intention of being used with the gen 6 Pokémon games; some info has been added for Sun and Moon. This can be used with any older Pokémon game but millage may vary.

A word of warning: The rest of this guide is written assuming you have become the champion by beating the elite four. Additionally, not every aspect of obtaining Pokémon is gone over in detail in this guide. If you need more info on things I haven’t explained, I have listed helpful resources for this info at the end of this guide.

There are a few components to completing a living dex: Organizing, catching, breeding, evolving, and trading. First, we will start with how to organize your Pokémon!

Organizing

Organizing is the first step. This will help figure out what Pokémon you have and what Pokémon you still need.

Minimum requirements one gen 6 or gen 7 game. The PC in one game file can hold over 900 Pokémon. That is more than enough to hold a living dex. I use the Pokémon bank, Poké transporter, a pokédex iOS app, and a living dex tracking website.

Organize your storage system of choice by first naming your boxes 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, ect in multiples of 30 until you’ve reached 721. If you are including Sun/Moon in your living dex you’ll need to name your boxes up to 802. If you are interested only in collecting Pokémon exclusive to Sun and Moon you can stop at 302.

Transfer all Pokémon into your storage system of choice. If you want to, include your older gen Pokémon using the Poké Transporter application. The advantage of the Pokémon Bank is that you can transfer Pokémon from HGSS (through gen 5), BW, BW2, and Red/Blue/Yellow digital versions into your Pokémon Bank.

Keep all spare Pokémon. Pokémon that you have multiple of can come in handy later on because they will be useful for WT/ breeding/ leveling up. I recommend keeping most of your Pokémon in storage in their numbered boxes. But keep all the Pokémon you want and will use in the game you will be playing with to complete your dex.

Just a forewarning, this post may “break the magic” a bit. Some photos I use will show the animatronics actors in their full 1960’s stage makeup glory. Imagineers are great at using lighting to hide things you aren’t supposed to see and driving your eye to what they want you to really focus on. Advances in digital cameras and old-fashioned flash photography RUIN ALL OF THAT.

Walt Disney Company just announced their plans to change a portion of the pirates of the Caribbean ride. This portion contains the scene where local women are chained together and auctioned off to the highest paying pirate. Implying, at the very least, women are objects or actual sex slaves. Soon this moment will be transformed into a public scene with a red headed lady pirate leads an auction of items.

This announcement had me thinking of all the times Pirates at Disneyland had been changed. More recently the changes have happened under the guise of updating the ride to reflect the movie franchise. The women characters/ actors have been modified in many ways since the 90s to be more appealing to gen X and millennial viewers. The assumed audience of this ride has changed in the 50 years since the ride opened.

the scene in it’s current state

Walt Disney said he wanted his park to grow and change. (AKA keep up with the ideals of new consumers) He didn’t want his park to seem dated. Disney also wanted his park to have a clean and family oriented environment. This was unlike carnivals and amusement parks of the first to mid part of the 20th century that attracted illicit behavior and drugs. The executives of Disney know who visits and works at their parks. They know their audience doesn’t just consist of men but also women, girls, and the queer and brown communities. Of course they are passive about acknowledging it. Disney is not one to rock the boat. They don’t make a statement because they still want money from guests of all political beliefs. So imagaineers occasionally update and change rides. Most of the time it’s slight. They know if their parks reflect current cultural values, verses continuing promoting dated ideals of the mid-century, people feel satisfied (spend money).

groovy

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened in 1967. Like most of Disneyland, and honestly most media in the mid-century, the attraction was built for a very specific viewer; the middle class white male. Pirates follows a simple story, what happens when a group of pirates take over a village and their subsequent follies and mishaps. I’m not going to spell out each scene of the ride but the time line follows a simple formula. The pirates’ battle, move on to the island, rape and pillage, then burn the place down. I guess you die at some point? Educational and entertaining, Edu-tainment!

Imagineers we’re following a cultural norm when it came to how they depicted women. This ride was built during the counter culture movement and second wave feminism. Male gaze wasn’t part of the vocabulary of Disney imagineers. Nor did they know that you could create attractions telling the story of someone other than a white man. This wasn’t a bad thing, it’s just how it was. Thankfully things have changed since then.

One of Marc Davis’ drawings done during development of the ride

In the middle of the ride guests are introduced to some women of the town that the pirates have taken over. They are auctioned off in one scene and then you see them being chased around bedrooms. The pirates were trying to have their way with them. Minus the “Corn fed” woman, as the script called her, who chased a pirate. I guess pirates weren’t attracted to fat women.

This is how the ride was until 1997. That is when pirates was closed for a renovation for the ride’s 30th birthday. Then the women were given plates of food and drink. This was supposed to justify why the women were being chased. Of course the fat woman was still chasing the pirate, he had stole her ham!

the original

Then Disney produced a movie loosely based on the, then, almost 40 year old attraction. In 2006 the ride went down for another major renovation. This time it was to mostly add elements in from the movie but once again the roll of the women being chased changed. Now these women are chasing the men who have stolen the pies. Since then this moment has been changed around a few times.

pretty sure you don’t make ham with a rolling pin

At one point in the late 00s the women were changed back to their original position of being chased. More recently the women have been given jewels. Now the pirates aren’t lusting after the bodies of the women or their domestic skills but rather TREASURE. Yes the fat woman was still chasing the man, he was holding a box of jewels. I believe there were variations of how this scene played out for a few years. Imagineers seemly futzing back and forth with the best way to use the characters and stage in a non-offensive manner.

another iteration.

Now the ride shows the women chasing the pirates who are holding valuable household items. The larger woman’s roll isn’t reversed in order to make a low joke on fat women. All of the women are “empowered” to chase after thieves who have stolen valuable objects from their homes. Once the buying a bride moment is redone to an actual auction scene, the viewer will have no exposure to any implied sexual harassment or male gaze.

One of the thin women post 2006 reno

People have poked fun of and reacted negatively to the changes in the past. There are some that argue that the ride has been watered down. Others say that Disney shouldn’t bow down to PC naysayers and keep the ride as it was originally intended. It’s important for people to learn and acknowledge the awful things that happened to in history. The selling and treatment of people like objects is a real aspect of our history as humans as well as our present. It also is important to remember that values have changed in recent history. We need to be honest and talk about how minorities and women were depicted in culture and media by men in power and how those types of representation are wrong but at the time seemed ok. Really though, Disney shouldn’t be the place to have this conversation. You can’t have Disneyland be the happiest place on earth, except for the 30 seconds where you are reminded that sex slaves are real. The environment and resources are not set up to be a place to reflect on the real and troubled past. It is a theme park based on cartoon stories. There is no basis for reality nor there should be.

Further reading on this issue and info on another element from these scenes they totally changed in 1997